1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to document management, and in particular, to management of a plurality of document files converted into electronic data.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With the proliferation of computers, typified by personal computers, and the development of technology for software, such as word processors, a great number of documents are created as electronic data and stored in a recording medium connected to an computer or the like. Although those documents are managed as independent document files, in not a few cases, a plurality of files constitutes one document or a semantic unit. For this reason, there has been required a method for collectively managing and using a plurality of document files.
For example, there are some cases where a person to produce documents produces each chapter of documents as one file. There are also cases where a plurality of printed papers are converted into electronic data with a scanner or the like, and uses the electronic data converted into document data by the optical character recognition (OCR) function to complete documents. The completed documents are constituted of a plurality of document files each consisting of a plurality of pages.
In a stage where this completed document is used, the necessity arises to collectively issue a print command and other commands. However, it is time consuming, and could be an inducement for an operational error, to issue such a print command and other commands to each of a plurality of document files. Further, files of an enormously large total number also make the process thereof enormously complicated, and thereby the utility value of those electronic data might be viewed with suspicion.
Further, a management risk may arise. Managing a large number of electronic files with a record medium causes a user's attention to reduce, which may sometimes result in scattering of the files in a storage medium due to an unintentional operation error. It is time consuming to perform a thorough search in a storage medium of today having been increased in capacity. In the worst case, a user has no key for search, making necessary files remain unusable for a long period of time.
Gathering a plurality of files into one file can be considered to prevent the possibility that part of the plurality of files scatter. However, the capacity of the gathered file might be enlarged and, depending on capabilities of computers, a user might perceive deterioration in operability. There are some cases where a user in the first place does not desire for gathering the plurality of files into a single file.
Therefore, it has been necessary to develop a method and an apparatus for collectively managing and using a plurality of document files.
For example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-84246, a concept of a binder is introduced to enable collective management and processing of an assembly including a plurality of document files. In a storage device of a computer, a region for storing data concerning a binder object is provided for storing links to objects of document files bound up in the binder in the data region, to bind up a plurality of document files while keeping an independent state of each document file. Further, in the data region of the binder object, a variety of attributes, concerning the document file objects bound up in the binder, are stored. The attributes are read and necessary information processing is further performed for updating the attributes based on the processing result, thereby to realize display of a requested page, or form feed in a page unit or a document unit, in the document files being bound up in the binder. Each document file is kept in an independent state of the other document file being bound up together, and links to the document file objects are stored as data in the binder object. By updating the data, therefore, a change in order of documents included in the binder, and addition and deletion of a document to and from the document binder, can be performed without changing the document file.
A document management apparatus realized by Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-84246 has a graphical user interface (GUI). An input device, such as a mouse, is used to operate an icon of a binder object to be displayed, an icon of a document file object bound up in the binder, and an icon of a document file object not bound up in the binder, and with the GUI, an information processing function according to the operation is performed. Further, the document management apparatus allows transmission of data for printing of a document file to a printing device so as to form a binding margin to the image of the binder.
However, in order to perform a process for changing an attribute of document file objects, e.g. changing a security setting (setting of a password etc.) for read-only setting, on one or more than one of document file objects bound up in the binder object, it is necessary to perform the process for changing an attribute separately on each document file. For this reason, with the increase in number of document file objects, a user needs to repeatedly operate the same process on the document management apparatus, thereby to force the user to greatly bear the burden of operation.
Further, when the binder is united to another binder to produce a new binder, a boundary between the original binders becomes unknown, making the user unable to distinguish whether the document files were previously bound up separately.
Further, in order to decompose the binders so as to constitute a plurality of binders consisting of document files included in the decomposed binders, it is necessary to temporarily reset separate links to the document files stored in the binder objects to set new links to new binder objects. Namely, the document files are temporarily decomposed to the separate file units in process of being decomposed to a plurality of binders. This requires the user to pay and make enormous attention and efforts for reconstitution of the binders. Also in this case, with the increase in number of the document file objects and the binder objects newly formed by the division, the user is required to spend and make enormous time and efforts for operating the document management apparatus.
For the reasons described above, there has been desired the function of sub-grouping any given files, included in a plurality of files in a virtually combined state, and performing a variety of processes in a simple and collective manner on a group of files included in the subgroup.